Magic: The Gathering is Turing Complete
Alex Churchill Stella Biderman Austin Herrick
Independent Researcher Georgia Institute of Technology
Cambridge, United Kingdom Atlanta, United States of America
alex.churchill@cantab.net stellabiderman@gatech.edu
Abstract—Magic: The Gathering is a popular and famously
complicated trading card game about magical combat. In this
arXiv:1904.09828v2 [cs.AI] 23 Apr 2019
paper we show that optimal play in real-world Magic is at
least as hard as the Halting Problem, solving a problem that
has been open for a decade [1], [10]. To do this, we present a
methodology for embedding an arbitrary Turing machine into a
game of Magic such that the first player is guaranteed to win the
game if and only if the Turing machine halts. Our result applies
to how real Magic is played, can be achieved using standard-
size tournament-legal decks, and does not rely on stochasticity
or hidden information. Our result is also highly unusual in that
all moves of both players are forced in the construction. This
shows that even recognising who will win a game in which neither
player has a non-trivial decision to make for the rest of the game
is undecidable. We conclude with a discussion of the implications
for a unified computational theory of games and remarks about
the playability of such a board in a tournament setting.
I. I NTRODUCTION
Magic: The Gathering (also known as Magic) is a popular
trading card game owned by Wizards of the Coast. Formally, it
is a two-player zero-sum stochastic card game with imperfect
information, putting it in the same category as games like
poker and hearts. Unlike those games, players design their
own custom decks out of a card-pool of over 20,000 cards.
Magic’s multifaceted strategy has made it a popular topic in
artificial intelligence research.
In this paper, we examine Magic: The Gathering from the
point of view of algorithmic game theory, looking at the
computational complexity of evaluating who will win a game.
As most games have finite limits on their complexity (such
as the size of a game board) most research in algorithmic
game theory of real-world games has primarily looked at
generalisations of commonly played games rather than the
real-world versions of the games. A few real-world games have
been found to have non-trivial complexity, including Dots-and-
Boxes, Jenga and Tetris [8]. We believe that no real-world
game is known to be harder than NP previous to this work.
Even when looking at generalised games, very few examples
of undecidable games are known. On an abstract level, the
Team Computation Game [9] shows that some games can be
undecidable, if they are a particular kind of team game with
imperfect information. The authors also present an equivalent
construction in their Constraint Logic framework that was used
by Coulombe and Lynch (2018) [7] to show that some video
games, including Super Smash Bros Melee and Mario Kart,
have undecidable generalisations. Constraint Logic is a highly
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, United States of America
aherrick@wharton.upenn.edu
successful and highly flexible framework for modelling games
as computations.
The core of this paper is the construction presented in
Section IV: a universal Turing machine embedded into a game
of Magic: The Gathering. As we can arrange for the victor
of the game to be determined by the halting behaviour of
the Turing machine, this construction establishes the following
theorem:
Theorem 1: Determining the outcome of a game of Magic:
The Gathering in which all remaining moves are forced is
undecidable.
A. Previous Work
Prior to this work, no undecidable real games were known
to exist. Demaine and Hearn (2009) [10] note that almost every
real-world game is trivially decidable, as they produce game
trees with only computable paths. They further note that Rengo
Kriegspiel1 is “a game humans play that is not obviously
decidable; we are not aware of any other such game.” It
is conjectured by Auger and Teytaud (2012) [1] that Rengo
Kriegspiel is in fact undecidable, and it is posed as an open
problem to demonstrate any real game that is undecidable.
The approach of embedding a Turing machine inside a
game directly is generally not considered to be feasible for
real-world games [10]. Although some open-world sandbox
games such as Minecraft and Dwarf Fortress can support
the construction of Turing machines, those machines have no
strategic relevance and those games are deliberately designed
to support large-scale simulation. In contrast, leading formal
theory of strategic games claims that the unbounded memory
required to simulate a Turing machine entirely in a game
would be a violation of the very nature of a game [9].
The computational complexity of Magic: The Gathering in
has been studied previously by several authors. Our work is
inspired by [4], in which it was shown that four-player Magic
can simulate a Turing machine under certain assumptions
about player behaviour. In that work, Churchill conjectures
that these limitations can be removed and preliminary work
along those lines is discussed in [5]. The computational
complexity of checking the legality of a particular decision
in Magic (blocking) is investigated in [3] and is found to
be coNP-complete. There have also been a number of papers
1 Rengo Kriegspiel is a combination of two variations on Go: Rengo, in
which two players play on a team alternating turns, and Shadow Go, in which
players are only able to see their own moves.
investigating algorithmic and artificial intelligence approaches
to playing Magic, including Ward and Cowling (2009) [15],
Cowling et al. (2012) [6], and Esche (2018) [11]. Esche (2018)
briefly considers the theoretical computational complexity of
Magic and states an open problem that has a positive answer
only if Magic end-games are decidable.
B. Our Contribution
This paper completes the project started by Churchill [4]
and continued by Churchill et al. [5] of embedding a universal
Turing machine in Magic: The Gathering such that determin-
ing the outcome of the game is equivalent to determining the
halting of the Turing machine. This is the first result showing
that there exists a real-world game for which determining
the winning strategy is non-computable, answering an open
question of Demaine and Hearn [10] and Auger and Teytaud
[1] in the positive. This result, combined with Rice’s Theorem
[13], also answers an open problem from Esche [11] in the
negative by showing that the equivalence of two strategies for
playing Magic is undecidable.
This result raises important foundational questions about
the nature of a game itself. As we have already discussed, the
leading formal theory of games holds that this construction
is unreasonable, if not impossible, and so a reconsideration
of those assumptions is called for. In section V-A we discuss
additional foundational assumptions of Constraint Logic that
Magic: The Gathering violates, and present our interpretation
of the implications for a unified theory of games.
C. Overview
The paper is structured as follows. In Section II we provide
background information on this work, including previous work
on Magic Turing machines. In Section III we present a sketch
of the construction and its key pieces. In Section IV we provide
the full construction of a universal Turing machine embedded
in a two-player game of Magic. In Section V we discuss the
game-theoretic and real-world implications of our result.
II. P RELIMINARIES
One initial challenge with Magic: The Gathering is the
encoding of information. Some cards ask players to choose
a number. Although rules for how to specify a number are not
discussed in the Comprehensive Rules [16], convention is that
players are allowed to specify numbers in any way that both
players can agree to. For example, you are allowed to choose
the number 2100 or ⌈log 177⌉. This presents an issue brought
to our attention by Fortanely [12]. Consider the following
situation: both players control Lich, Transcendence, and
Laboratory Maniac. One player then casts Menacing Ogre.
The net effect of this play is the “Who Can Name the Bigger
Number” game – whoever picks the biggest number wins on
the spot. This makes identifying the next board state non-
computable [2], so we require that any numbers specified by
a player must be expressed in standard binary notation.
We believe that with this restriction Magic: The Gathering is
transition-computable, meaning that the function that maps a
2
board state and a move to the next board state is computable2.
However, it is unclear how to prove this beyond exhaustive
analysis of the over 20,000 cards in the game. We leave that
question open for future work:
Conjecture 1: The function that takes a board state and
a legal move and returns the next board state in Magic: The
Gathering is computable.
In this conjecture we say “a legal move” because it is also not
obvious that checking to see if a move is legal is computable.
Chatterjee and Ibsen-Jensen [3] show that checking the legality
of a particular kind of game action is coNP-complete, but the
question has not been otherwise considered. Again, we leave
this for future work:
Conjecture 2: There does not exist an algorithm for
checking the legality of a move in Magic: The Gathering.
A. Previous Magic Turing Machines
In [4], the author presents a Magic: The Gathering end-
game that embeds a universal Turing machine. However, this
work has a major issue: it’s not quite deterministic. At several
points in the simulation, players have the ability to stop the
computation at any time by opting to decline to use effects that
say “may.” For example, Kazuul Warlord reads “Whenever
Kazuul Warlord or another Ally enters the battlefield under
your control, you may put a +1/ + 1 counter on each Ally
you control.” Declining to use this ability will interfere with
the Turing machine, either causing it to stop or causing it
to perform a different calculation from the one intended.
The construction as given in Churchill [4] works under the
assumption that all players that are given the option to do
something actually do it, but as the author notes it fails without
this assumption. Attempts to correct this issue are discussed
in Churchill et al. [5].
In this work, we solve this problem by reformulating the
construction to exclusively use cards with mandatory effects.
We also substantially simplify the most complicated aspect
of the construction, the recording of the tape, and reduce the
construction from one involving four players to one involving
two, and which only places constraints on one player’s deck,
matching the format in which Magic is most commonly played
in the real world (two-player duels). Like the previous work,
we will embed Rogozhin’s (2, 18) universal Turing machine
[14].
III. A N OVERVIEW OF THE C ONSTRUCTION
In this section we give a big picture view of the Turing
machine, with full details deferred to the next section. The
two players in the game are named Alice and Bob.
To construct a Turing machine in Magic: The Gathering
requires three main elements: the tape which encodes the
computation, the controller which determines what action to
take next based on the current state and the last read cell, and
the read/write head which interacts with the tape under the
control of the controller.
2 We avoid the term “computable game” which is more commonly used to
mean that the game has a computable winning strategy.
A. The Tape
As the rules of Magic: The Gathering do not contain any
concept of geometry or adjacency, encoding the tape itself
is tricky. Our solution is to have many creature tokens with
carefully controlled power and toughness, with each token’s
power and toughness representing the distance from the head
of the Turing machine. The tape to the left of the Turing
machine’s current read head position is represented by a
series of creature tokens which all have the game colour
green, while the tape to the right is represented by white
tokens. Our distance-counting starts at 2, so there is one 2/2
token representing the space currently under the head of the
Turing machine; a green 3/3 token represents the tape space
immediately to the left of the Turing head, a green 4/4 is
the space to the left of that, and so on. Rogozhin’s universal
Turing machine starts with the read head in the middle of the
tape [14].
To represent the symbols on the tape, we use creature types.
We choose 18 creature types from the list of creature types in
Magic to correspond to the 18 symbols in Rogozhin’s (2, 18)
UTM. We can choose these creature types to begin with suc-
cessive letters of the alphabet: Aetherborn, Basilisk, Cephalid,
Demon, Elf, Faerie, Giant, Harpy, Illusion, Juggernaut, Kavu,
Leviathan, Myr, Noggle, Orc, Pegasus, Rhino, and Sliver. For
example, a green 5/5 Aetherborn token represents that the 1st
symbol is written on the 3rd cell to the left of the head, and a
white 10/10 Sliver represents that the 18th symbol is written
on the 9th cell to the right of the head. These tokens are all
controlled by Bob, except the most recently created token (the
space the Turing head has just left) which is controlled by
Alice.
B. The Controller
Control instructions in a Turing machine are represented by
a table of conditional statements of the form “if the machine
is in state s, and the last read cell is symbol k, then do such-
and-such.” Many Magic cards have triggered abilities which
can function like conditional statements. The two we shall use
are Rotlung Reanimator (“Whenever Rotlung Reanimator or
another Cleric dies, create a 2/2 black Zombie creature token”)
and Xathrid Necromancer (“Whenever Xathrid Necromancer
or another Human creature you control dies, create a tapped
2/2 black Zombie creature token”). We will use both, and the
difference between tapped and untapped creature tokens will
contribute to the design of the Turing machine.
Each Rotlung Reanimator3 needs to trigger from a dif-
ferent state being read – that is, a different creature type
dying – and needs to encode a different result. Fortunately,
Magic includes cards that can be used to edit the text of other
cards. The card Artificial Evolution is uniquely powerful for
our purposes, as it reads “Change the text of target spell or
permanent by replacing all instances of one creature type with
another. The new creature type can’t be Wall. (This effect
3 For now we will speak about Rotlung Reanimator for simplicity. Some of
these will in fact be Xathrid Necromancers as explained in the next section.
3
lasts indefinitely.)” So we create a large number of copies
of Rotlung Reanimator and edit each one. A similar card
Glamerdye can be used to modify the colour words within
card text.
Thus, we edit a Rotlung Reanimator by casting two copies
of Artificial Evolution replacing ‘Cleric’ with ‘Aetherborn’
and ‘Zombie’ with ‘Sliver’ and one copy of Glamerdye to
replace ‘black’ with ‘white’, so that this Rotlung Reani-
mator now reads “Whenever Rotlung Reanimator or another
Aetherborn dies, create a 2/2 white Sliver creature token”4 .
This Rotlung Reanimator now encodes the first rule of the
q1 program of the (2, 18) UTM: “When reading symbol 1
in state A, write symbol 18 and move left.” The Aetherborn
creature token represents symbol 1, the Sliver creature token
represents symbol 18, and the fact that the token is white leads
to processing that will cause the head to move left.
We similarly have seventeen more Rotlung Reanimators
encoding the rest of the q1 program from [14]. Between them
they say:
1) Whenever an Aetherborn dies, create a 2/2 white Sliver.
2) Whenever a Basilisk dies, create a 2/2 green Elf.
Whenever a . . . dies, create a 2/2 . . .
18) Whenever a Sliver dies, create a 2/2 green Cephalid.
See Table II for the full encoding of the program.
C. The Read/Write Head
The operation “read the current cell of the tape” is rep-
resented in-game by forcing Alice to cast Infest to give all
creatures −2/−2. This causes the unique token with 2 toughness
to die. It had a colour (green or white) which is irrelevant,
and a creature type which corresponds to the symbol written
on that cell. That creature type is noticed by a Rotlung
Reanimator, which has a triggered ability that is used to carry
out the logic encoded in the head of the Turing machine. It
produces a new 2/2 token, containing the information written
to the cell that was just read.
The Turing machine then moves either left or right and
modifies the tokens to keep the tape in order by adding
+1/ + 1 counters to all tokens on one side of the head and
−1/−1 counters to all tokens on the other side. Moving left or
right will be accomplished by casting first Cleansing Beam
and then Soul Snuffers.
D. Adding a Second State
Everything described so far outlines the operation of one
state of the Turing machine. However, our Turing machine
requires two states. To accomplish this, we leverage phasing:
an object with phasing can ‘phase in’ or ‘phase out’, and
while it’s phased out, it’s treated as though it doesn’t exist.
We can grant phasing to our Rotlung Reanimators using the
enchantment Cloak of Invisibility (“Enchanted creature has
phasing and can’t be blocked except by Walls”) and create a
second set of Rotlung Reanimators to encode the program
4 Throughout this paper, card text that has been modified using cards such
as Artificial Evolution is written in italics.
 TABLE I
G AME STATE WHEN THE (2, 18) UTM BEGINS

Card Controller Changed text / choices / attachment Card Controller

29 Rotlung Reanimator Bob See Table II Wild Evocation Bob
7 Xathrid Necromancer Bob See Table II Recycle Bob
29 Cloak of Invisibility Alice attached to each Rotlung Reanimator Privileged Position Bob
7 Cloak of Invisibility Alice attached to each Xathrid Necromancer Vigor Alice
Wheel of Sun and Moon Alice attached to Alice Vigor Bob
Illusory Gains Alice attached to latest tape token Mesmeric Orb Alice
Steely Resolve Alice Assembly-Worker Ancient Tomb Alice
2 Dread of Night Alice Black Prismatic Omen Alice
Fungus Sliver Alice Incarnation Choke Alice
Rotlung Reanimator Alice Lhurgoyf, black, Cephalid Blazing Archon Alice
Rotlung Reanimator Bob Lhurgoyf, green, Lhurgoyf Blazing Archon Bob
Shared Triumph Alice Lhurgoyf
Rotlung Reanimator Alice Rat, black, Cephalid
Rotlung Reanimator Bob Rat, white, Rat
Shared Triumph Alice Rat

q2 . At the moment we read the current cell, exactly one set of
Rotlung Reanimators will be phased in.
Objects with phasing phase in or out at the beginning of
their controller’s turn, effectively toggling between two states.
Accordingly we will arrange for the turn cycle to last 4 turns
for each player when no state change occurs, but just 3 turns
when we need to change state.
IV. T HE F ULL C ONSTRUCTION
Now we will provide the full construction of the Magic: The
Gathering Turing machine and walk through a computational
step. The outline of one step of the computation is as follows
(Bob’s turns are omitted as nothing happens during them):
T1 Alice casts Infest. Turing processing occurs: a white or
green token dies, a new white or green token is created.
T2 Alice casts Cleansing Beam, putting two +1/ + 1 count-
ers on the side of the tape we are moving away from.
T3 If the Turing machine is remaining in the same state,
Alice casts Coalition Victory. If it is changing state,
Alice casts Soul Snuffers, putting a −1/−1 counter on
each creature.
T4 If the Turing machine is remaining in the same state, this
is the point where Alice casts Soul Snuffers. Otherwise,
the next computational step begins.
A. Beginning a Computational Step and Casting Spells
At the beginning of a computational step, it is Alice’s turn
and she has the card Infest in hand. Her library consists of the
other cards she will cast during the computation (Cleansing
Beam, Coalition Victory, and Soul Snuffers, in that order).
Bob’s hand and library are both empty. The Turing machine
is in its starting state and the tape has already been initialised.
At the start of each of Alice’s turns, she has one card in
hand. She’s forced to cast it due to Bob controlling Wild
Evocation, which reads “At the beginning of each player’s
upkeep, that player reveals a card at random from their hand.
If it’s a land card, the player puts it onto the battlefield.
Otherwise, the player casts it without paying its mana cost
if able.” When the card resolves, it would normally be put
into her graveyard, but Alice is enchanted by Wheel of Sun
and Moon, which causes it to be placed at the bottom of her
library instead, allowing her to redraw it in the future and
keeping the cards she needs to cast in order. After her upkeep
step, Alice proceeds to her draw step and draws the card that
she will cast next turn.
Alice has no choices throughout this process: she does
control one land, but it remains permanently tapped because
of Choke (“Islands don’t untap during their controllers untap
steps”), so she is unable to cast any of the spells she draws
except via Wild Evocation’s ability. Neither player is able to
attack because they both control a Blazing Archon, “Creatures
can’t attack you.”
Bob has no cards in hand and controls Recycle, which reads
(in part) “Skip your draw step”. This prevents Bob from losing
due to drawing from an empty library.
B. Reading the Current Cell
On the first turn of the cycle, Alice is forced to cast Infest,
“All creatures get −2/−2 until end of turn.” This kills one
creature: the tape token at the position of the current read
head, controlled by Bob. This will cause precisely one creature
of Bob’s to trigger – either a Rotlung Reanimator or a
Xathrid Necromancer. Which precise one triggers is based
on that token’s creature type and the machine’s current state,
corresponding to the appropriate rule in the definition of the
(2, 18) UTM. This Reanimator or Necromancer will create a
new 2/2 token to replace the one that died. The new token’s
creature type represents the symbol to be written to the current
cell, and the new token’s colour indicates the direction for the
machine to move: white for left or green for right.
Alice controls Illusory Gains, an Aura which reads “You
control enchanted creature. Whenever a creature enters the
battlefield under an opponent’s control, attach Illusory Gains to
that creature.” Each time one of Bob’s Rotlung Reanimators
or Xathrid Necromancers creates a new token, Illusory
Gains triggers, granting Alice control of the newest token on
the tape, and reverting control of the previous token to Bob.

4
 TABLE II
F ULL TEXT OF THE ROTLUNG R EANIMATORS AND X ATHRID N ECROMANCERS ENCODING THE (2, 18) UTM

Rogozhin’s program Card text

q1 1 c2 Lq1 Whenever an Aetherborn dies, create a 2/2 white Sliver
→
− ←−
q1 1 11 Rq1 Whenever a Basilisk dies, create a 2/2 green Elf
←−
q1 1 c2 Lq1 Whenever a Cephalid dies, create a 2/2 white Sliver
→
−
q1 11 1 Rq1 Whenever a Demon dies, create a 2/2 green Aetherborn
←
− →
−
q1 11 11 Lq1 Whenever an Elf dies, create a 2/2 white Demon
←
−
q1 b b Rq1 Whenever a Faerie dies, create a 2/2 green Harpy
→
− ←−
q1 b b1 Rq1 Whenever a Giant dies, create a 2/2 green Juggernaut
←−
q1 b b Lq1 Whenever a Harpy dies, create a 2/2 white Faerie
→
−
q1 b1 b Rq1 Whenever an Illusion dies, create a 2/2 green Faerie
←
− →
−
q1 b1 b1 Lq1 Whenever a Juggernaut dies, create a 2/2 white Illusion
q1 b2 b3 Lq2 Whenever a Kavu dies, create a tapped 2/2 white Leviathan
→
−
q1 b3 b1 Lq2 Whenever a Leviathan dies, create a tapped 2/2 white Illusion
→
−
q1 c 1 Lq2 Whenever a Myr dies, create a tapped 2/2 white Basilisk
q1 →
−c ←
−c Rq1 Whenever a Noggle dies, create a 2/2 green Orc
q1 ←−
c →
−c1 Lq1 Whenever an Orc dies, create a 2/2 white Pegasus
q1 →
−
c1 ←−
c1 Rq2 Whenever a Pegasus dies, create a tapped 2/2 green Rhino
q1 ←
−
c1 HALT Whenever a Rhino dies, create a 2/2 blue Assassin
←
−
q1 c2 1 Rq1 Whenever a Sliver dies, create a 2/2 green Cephalid
←
−
q2 1 1 Rq2 Whenever an Aetherborn dies, create a 2/2 green Cephalid
→
− ←
−
q2 1 1 Rq2 Whenever a Basilisk dies, create a 2/2 green Cephalid
←− →
−
q2 1 1 Lq2 Whenever a Cephalid dies, create a 2/2 white Basilisk
→
− ←−
q2 11 11 Rq2 Whenever a Demon dies, create a 2/2 green Elf
←
−
q2 11 1 Lq2 Whenever an Elf dies, create a 2/2 white Aetherborn
q2 b b2 Rq1 Whenever a Faerie dies, create a tapped 2/2 green Kavu
→
− ←
−
q2 b b Rq2 Whenever a Giant dies, create a 2/2 green Harpy
←− →
−
q2 b b Lq2 Whenever a Harpy dies, create a 2/2 white Giant
→
− ←−
q2 b1 b1 Rq2 Whenever an Illusion dies, create a 2/2 green Juggernaut
←
− →
−
q2 b1 b Lq2 Whenever a Juggernaut dies, create a 2/2 white Giant
q2 b2 b Rq1 Whenever a Kavu dies, create a tapped 2/2 green Faerie
←−
q2 b3 b1 Rq2 Whenever a Leviathan dies, create a 2/2 green Juggernaut
q2 c ←
−c Rq2 Whenever a Myr dies, create a 2/2 green Orc
q2 →
−c ←
−c Rq2 Whenever a Noggle dies, create a 2/2 green Orc
q2 ←−
c →
−c Lq2 Whenever an Orc dies, create a 2/2 white Noggle
q2 →
−
c1 c2 Rq2 Whenever a Pegasus dies, create a 2/2 green Sliver
q2 ←
−
c1 c2 Lq1 Whenever a Rhino dies, create a tapped 2/2 white Sliver
q2 c2 c Lq2 Whenever a Sliver dies, create a 2/2 white Myr

So at any point Bob controls all of the tape except for the
most recently written symbol, which is controlled by Alice.
C. Moving Left or Right
If the new token is white, the Turing machine needs to
move left. To do this we need to take two actions: put a
+1/ + 1 counter on all white creatures (move the tape away
from white), and put a −1/−1 counter on all green creatures
(move the tape towards green). We rephrase this instead as:
put two +1/ + 1 counters on all white creatures, and put a
−1/−1 counter on all creatures.
On Alice’s second turn, she casts Cleansing Beam, which
reads “Cleansing Beam deals 2 damage to target creature and
each other creature that shares a color with it.” Bob controls
Privileged Position so none of Bob’s creatures can be targeted
by any spell Alice casts. Alice controls some creatures other
than the tape token, but they have all been granted creature
type Assembly-Worker by a hacked Olivia Voldaren, and
Alice controls a Steely Resolve naming Assembly-Worker
(“Creatures of the chosen type have shroud. (They can’t be
the targets of spells or abilities.)”) This makes it so that the
only legal target for Cleansing Beam is the one tape token
that Alice controls thanks to her Illusory Gains.
Recall that this token is white if we’re moving left, or green
if we’re moving right. Cleansing Beam is about to deal 2
damage to each white creature if we’re moving left, or to
each green creature if we’re moving right. Alice and Bob
each control a copy of Vigor – “If damage would be dealt
to another creature you control, prevent that damage. Put a
+1/ + 1 counter on that creature for each 1 damage prevented
this way.” So Cleansing Beam ends up putting two +1/ + 1
counters on either each white creature or each green creature.
On the last turn of the cycle, Alice casts Soul Snuffers, a
3/3 black creature which reads “When Soul Snuffers enters the
battlefield, put a −1/−1 counter on each creature.” There are
two copies of Dread of Night hacked to each say “Black
creatures get −1/−1”, which mean that the Soul Snuffers’
triggered ability will kill itself, as well as shrinking every other

5
creature. The creatures comprising the tape have now received
either a single −1/−1 counter, or two +1/ + 1 counters and a
−1/−1 counter.
To ensure that the creatures providing the infrastructure
(such as Rotlung Reanimator) aren’t killed by the succession
of −1/−1 counters each computational step, we arrange that
they also have game colours green, white, red and black,
using Prismatic Lace, “Target permanent becomes the color
or colors of your choice. (This effect lasts indefinitely.)”
Accordingly, each cycle Cleansing Beam will put two +1/+1
counters on them, growing them faster than the −1/−1 counters
shrink them. This applies to each creature except Vigor
itself; to keep each player’s Vigor from dwindling, there is
a Fungus Sliver hacked to read “All Incarnation creatures
have ‘Whenever this creature is dealt damage, put a +1/ + 1
counter on it.’ ”
D. Changing State
The instruction to change state is handled by replacing seven
of Bob’s Rotlung Reanimators with Xathrid Necromancer.
These two cards have very similar text, except that Xathrid
Necromancer only notices Bob’s creatures dying (this is not
a problem, as the active cell of the tape is always controlled
by Bob), and that Xathrid Necromancer creates its token
tapped.
For example, when the q1 program (State A) sees symbol 1,
it writes symbol 18, moves left, and remains in state A. This
is represented by a phasing Rotlung Reanimator under Bob’s
control saying “Whenever Rotlung Reanimator or another
Aetherborn dies, create a 2/2 white Sliver creature token.”
By contrast, when the q1 program sees symbol 11, it
writes symbol 12, moves left, and changes to state B. This is
represented by a phasing Xathrid Necromancer under Bob’s
control saying “Whenever Xathrid Necromancer or another
Kavu creature you control dies, create a tapped 2/2 white
Leviathan creature token.”
In both cases this token is created under Bob’s control on
turn T1, but Alice’s Illusory Gains triggers and grants her
control of it. In the case where it’s tapped, that means at
the beginning of turn T2, it will untap. This causes Alice’s
Mesmeric Orb’s trigger to be put on the stack at the same time
as Bob’s Wild Evocation’s trigger (since no player receives
priority during the untap step). Alice is the active player, so
Alice’s trigger is put on the stack first and then Bob’s [16]; so
the Wild Evocation trigger resolves, forcing Alice to cast and
resolve Cleansing Beam, before the Mesmeric Orb trigger
resolves.
When the Mesmeric Orb trigger does resolve, it tries to
put the Coalition Victory from the top of Alice’s library into
her graveyard. But Wheel of Sun and Moon modifies this
event to put Coalition Victory onto the bottom of her library,
just underneath the Cleansing Beam that’s just resolved.
Once all these triggers are resolved, Alice proceeds to her
draw step. When the state is not changing, she will draw
Coalition Victory at this point, but when the state is changing,
6
that card is skipped and she moves on to draw Soul Snuffers
in turn T2’s draw step, so she will cast it on turn T3.
The net result of this is that the computation step is 3
turns long for each player when the state is changing, but
4 turns long for each player when the state is not changing. In
the normal 4-turn operation, Bob’s phasing Reanimators and
Necromancers will phase in twice and phase out twice, and be
in the same state on one cycle’s turn T1 as they were in the
previous cycle’s turn T1. But when changing state, they will
have changed phase by the next cycle’s turn T1, switching the
Turing machine’s state.
E. Out of Tape
The Turing tape can be initialised to any desired length
before starting processing. But it is preferable to allow the
machine to run on a simulated infinite tape: in other words,
to assume that any uninitialised tape space contains symbol
3 (the blank symbol in the (2, 18) UTM), represented by
creature type Cephalid. This is accomplished by having the
ends of the currently-initialised tape marked by two special
tokens, one green Lhurgoyf and one white Rat. Suppose we’ve
exhausted all the initialised tape to the left. This means that
the casting of Infest on turn T1 kills the Lhurgoyf rather than
one of the normal tape types. This does not directly trigger
any of the normal Reanimators/Necromancers. Instead, Bob
has another Rotlung Reanimator hacked to read “Whenever
Rotlung Reanimator or another Lhurgoyf dies, create a 2/2
green Lhurgoyf creature token”, and Alice has a Rotlung
Reanimator hacked to read “Whenever Rotlung Reanimator
or another Lhurgoyf dies, create a 2/2 black Cephalid creature
token.” Bob’s trigger will resolve first, then Alice’s.
First, Bob’s Reanimator trigger creates a new Lhurgoyf just
to the left of the current head. (Alice’s Illusory Gains triggers
and gives her control of this new Lhurgoyf, but that will
soon change.) We have one copy of Shared Triumph set to
Lhurgoyf (“Creatures of the chosen type get +1/+1”) so this
token arrives as a 3/3.
Second, Alice’s Reanimator trigger now creates a 2/2 black
Cephalid under Alice’s control. The same two copies of Dread
of Night as before are giving all black creatures −2/−2, so the
black Cephalid will arrive as a 0/0 and immediately die.
The death of this Cephalid triggers one of the regular
phasing Reanimators of Bob’s just as if a tape cell containing
symbol 3 had been read: a new 2/2 token is created and
Illusory Gains moves to that new token. The green Lhurgoyf
token serving as an end-of-tape marker has been recreated one
step over to the left.
The situation for the white Rat representing the right-hand
end of the tape is exactly equivalent. Bob has a Rotlung
Reanimator hacked to read “Whenever Rotlung Reanimator
or another Rat dies, create a 2/2 white Rat creature token”;
Alice has a Rotlung Reanimator hacked to read “Whenever
Rotlung Reanimator or another Rat dies, create a 2/2 black
Cephalid creature token”; and we have another Shared Tri-
umph set to Rat.
 (This algorithm would be a little more complex if reading
symbol 3 could cause a state change in the (2, 18) UTM, but
thankfully it cannot.)
F. Halting
We choose to encode halting as making Alice win the game.
When the Turing machine doesn’t change state, Alice casts
the card Coalition Victory on her third turn. It reads “You win
the game if you control a land of each basic land type and a
creature of each color.” This normally accomplishes nothing
because she controls no blue creatures (Prismatic Lace has
been used to give her creatures of all the other colours). She
does, however, control one land, and also controls Prismatic
Omen, which reads “Lands you control are every basic land
type in addition to their other types.” Recall that Choke is in
play, preventing her from activating the mana ability of this
land.
When the halt symbol is read (symbol 17 in state A), the
appropriate phasing Reanimator of Bob’s reads “Whenever
Rotlung Reanimator or another Rhino dies, create a 2/2 blue
Assassin creature token.” Alice’s Illusory Gains takes control
of this Assassin token in the usual way in turn T1. She now
meets the condition for Coalition Victory when she casts it
on turn T3, and wins the game.
If the encoded machine does not in fact halt then the game
has entered an unbreakable deterministic infinite loop, which
is specified as a draw by rule 104.4b [16].
V. D ISCUSSION
A. Consequences for Computational Theories of Games
This construction establishes that Magic: The Gathering is
the most computationally complex real-world game known in
the literature. In addition to showing that optimal strategic
play in Magic is non-computable, it also shows that merely
evaluating the deterministic consequences of past moves in
Magic is non-computable. The full complexity of optimal
strategic play remains an open question, as do many other
computational aspects of Magic. For example, a player ap-
pears to have infinitely many moves available to them from
some board states of Magic. Whether or not there exists a
real-world game of Magic in which a player has infinitely
many meaningfully different moves available to them has the
potentially to highly impact the way we understand and model
games as a form of computation.
Indeed, this result raises several interesting philosophical
questions about games as a form of computation. Some
authors, such as Demaine and Hearn [9], have sought a formal
framework for modelling games that is strictly sub-Turing.
Unlike the open-world, non-strategic games in which Turing
machines have been constructed before, Magic: The Gathering
is unambiguously a two-player strategic game like such models
attempt to represent. Therefore this result shows that any sub-
Turing model is necessarily inadequate to capture all games.
Quite the opposite: it seems likely that a super-Turing model
of games would be necessary to explain Magic. The naı̈ve
extension of Demaine and Hearn’s Constraint Logic to allow
for unbounded memory appears to be meaningless, although
it’s possible that a clever approach would bring success.
Open Problem 3: Does there exist a generalisation of
Constraint Logic that explains the computational complexity
of Magic: The Gathering?
Although our construction is reducible to the Halting Prob-
lem, the fact that even evaluating a board is non-computable
is strongly suggestive that the complexity of strategic play is
greater than that. We believe there is strong evidence that the
true computational complexity is far higher. In particular, we
conjecture:
Conjecture 4: Playing Magic: The Gathering optimally is
at least as hard as 0(ω) .
Whether or not it is possible for there to be a real-world
game whose computational complexity is strictly harder than
0(ω) is an interesting philosophical question. If not, then this
conjecture would imply that Magic: The Gathering is as hard
as it is possible for a real-world game to be.
B. Real-world Playability and Legality
While there are practical difficulties involved with correctly
setting up the necessary board state, such as running out of
space on your table, a sufficiently tenacious player could set
up and execute this construction in a real-world tournament

TABLE III
60-C ARD D ECKLIST TO PLAY THE T URING MACHINE IN A L EGACY TOURNAMENT

Card Purpose Card Purpose Card Purpose

4 Ancient Tomb Bootstrap 1 Rotlung Reanimator Logic processing 1 Xathrid Necromancer Change state
4 Lotus Petal Bootstrap 1 Cloak of Invisibility Logic processing 1 Mesmeric Orb Change state
4 Grim Monolith Infinite mana device 1 Infest Logic processing 1 Coalition Victory Halting device
4 Power Artifact Infinite mana device 1 Cleansing Beam Logic processing 1 Prismatic Omen Halting device
4 Gemstone Array Infinite mana device 1 Soul Snuffers Logic processing 1 Choke Halting device
4 Staff of Domination Draw rest of deck 1 Illusory Gains Logic processing 1 Recycle Remove choices
1 Memnarch Make token copies 1 Privileged Position Logic processing 1 Blazing Archon Remove choices
1 Stolen Identity Make token copies 1 Steely Resolve Logic processing 1 Djinn Illuminatus Simplify setup
1 Artificial Evolution Edit cards 1 Vigor Logic processing 1 Reito Lantern Simplify setup
1 Olivia Voldaren Edit cards 1 Fungus Sliver Logic processing 1 Claws of Gix Simplify setup
1 Glamerdye Edit cards 1 Dread of Night Logic processing 1 Riptide Replicator Set up tape
1 Prismatic Lace Edit cards 1 Wild Evocation Forced play device 1 Capsize Set up tape
1 Donate Edit card control 1 Wheel of Sun and Moon Forced play device 1 Karn Liberated Cleanup after setup
1 Reality Ripple Edit card phase 1 Shared Triumph Infinite tape device 1 Fathom Feeder Cleanup after setup

7
game of Magic: The Gathering. An example 60-card deck that
is capable of executing this construction on the first turn of
the game and which is legal in the competitive Legacy format
can be seen in Table III.
With the correct draw, the deck uses Ancient Tomb and
three Lotus Petals to play Grim Monolith and Power Arti-
fact and generate unlimited colourless mana, at which point
Staff of Domination draws the rest of the deck and Gem-
stone Array generates unlimited coloured mana. The deck
casts most of the permanents immediately, and uses Stolen
Identity to make token copies of them (using Memnarch
first on the enchantments like Cloak of Invisibility). The
tape is initialised with Riptide Replicator and Capsize. Djinn
Illuminatus or Reito Lantern allow repeated casting of the
text-modification cards, as well as Reality Ripple which sets
the phase of the Rotlung Reanimators and Donate which
gives most permanents to Bob. Once everything is set up,
Steely Resolve is cast, and then Karn Liberated and Capsize
are used to exile all setup permanents and all cards from
Bob’s hand, eventually exiling Capsize and Karn Liberated
themselves. Now no player has any remaining choices except
to let the Turing machine execute.
In addition to the Comprehensive Rules [16], play at sanc-
tioned Magic: The Gathering tournaments is also governed by
the Tournament Rules [17]. Some of these rules, most notably
the ones involving slow play, may effect an individual’s ability
to successfully execute the combo due to concerns about the
sheer amount of time it would take to manually move the
tokens around to simulate a computation on a Turing machine.
This would not be a concern for two agents with sufficiently
high computational power, as the Tournament Rules also
provide a mechanism called “shortcuts” for players to skip
carrying out laborious loops if both players agree on the game
state at the beginning and the end of the shortcut.
VI. C ONCLUSION
We have presented a methodology for embedding Ro-
gozhin’s (2, 18) universal Turing machine in a two-player
game of Magic: The Gathering. Consequently, we have shown
that identifying the outcome of a game of Magic in which all
moves are forced for the rest of the game is undecidable. In
addition to solving a decade-old outstanding open problem, in
the process of arriving at our result we showed that Magic:
The Gathering does not fit assumptions commonly made by
computer scientists while modelling games. We conjecture that
optimal play in Magic is far harder than this result alone
implies, and leave the true complexity of Magic and the
reconciliation of Magic with existing theories of games for
future research.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We are grateful to C-Y. Howe for help simplifying our Tur-
ing machine construction considerably and to Adam Yedidia
for conversations about the design and construction of Turing
machines.
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